Whether prompting students to construct explanations during retrieval adds benefit beyond initial free recall is mixed across studies¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · review r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2017 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? The chapter reports, citing Hinze et al. (2013), that instructing students to construct explanations during initial retrieval produced additional benefit beyond free recall on a final inference test. → Karpicke 2017 q2 i? The chapter reports, citing Smith et al. (2016), that prompting students to describe and explain concepts did not confer benefit beyond initial free recall. → Karpicke 2017 (2)

Evidence¶

Karpicke 2017¶

Karpicke, J. D. (2017). Retrieval-Based Learning: A Decade of Progress. Learning and Memory: A Comprehensive Reference, 2nd edition, Volume 2. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-809324-5.21055-9

q2 · i? · review · r3

The chapter reports Hinze et al. (2013), who found that "instructing students to construct explanations during initial retrieval produced an additional bene fit beyond initial free recall".

"In subsequent research, Hinze et al. (2013) found that instructing students to construct explanations during initial retrieval produced an additional bene fit beyond initial free recall, as assessed on a final test that contained inference questions."

Karpicke 2017 (2)¶

Karpicke, J. D. (2017). Retrieval-Based Learning: A Decade of Progress. Learning and Memory: A Comprehensive Reference, 2nd edition, Volume 2. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-809324-5.21055-9

q2 · i? · review · r3

The chapter reports Smith et al. (2016), in which "prompting students to describe and explain concepts did not confer bene fit beyond initial free recall"; no test statistic is printed.

"However, Smith et al. (2016) found that prompting students to describe and explain concepts did not confer bene fit beyond initial free recall."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Prompting learners to self-explain improves understanding and problem solving on immediate tests by a moderate average amount, with little evidence yet on delayed or classroom gains. — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it

• Elaborative Encoding Improves Retention — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it

• Retrieval practice enhances performance on final inference and transfer questions relative to restudying, although a single-word fill-in-the-blank task did not — related
• Initial retrieval conditions that provide less cue support, such as free recall rather than recognition or fewer letter cues, tend to produce better retention despite lower initial success — related
• Evidence on whether initial short-answer questions produce more learning than initial multiple-choice questions is mixed, with recent studies finding little or no difference — related
• Adopting mastery goals rather than performance goals during initial learning promotes transfer — related
• The benefits of retrieval practice do not depend on an exact match between initial retrieval practice conditions and the final test format — related
• Retrieval practice improved literal premise recall but did not improve deductive inference transfer compared to restudy — related
• No intervention benefits on source references in students' written conclusions (far transfer question) — related